Three years between Paralympic Games instead of four has Paris 2024 coming at high speed for champion swimmer Aurelie Rivard.
A double gold medallist in Tokyo's Games, which were postponed from 2020 to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 27-year-old from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., is adjusting to a compressed turnaround.
"Yesterday we were talking about Tokyo and suddenly we have to talk about Paris," Rivard said. "I can't believe we're already a year out. Everything had to move quicker in our preparation."
The Paralympic Games in Paris from Aug. 28 to Sept. 8, 2024, follow the Olympic Games there from July 6 to Aug. 11.
One impact of a triennial instead of a quadrennial between Paralympics had Canada's para swim team racing in a second world championship in as many years earlier this month in Manchester, England. The world championship is usually held every two years.
"We usually have that one buffer year and we jumped directly into the world championship season," said Rivard, whose 10 career Paralympic medals include five gold. "It required a lot of adjustment mentally."
World champion para triathlete Stefan Daniel of Calgary has similar feelings. It wasn't so long ago he was accepting his bronze medal in Tokyo.
He raced a test event in Paris earlier this month when he took bronze.
"It definitely has come up really fast," Daniel said. "The weirder part is it was a very long quadrennial going into Tokyo with the delay and now a shortened one."
Led by Rivard in the pool, the Canadian Paralympic team won 21 medals — five gold, 10 silver and six bronze — in Tokyo.
Since the Paralympic Games were included in the bidding process for Olympic Games in 1996 — when Canada won 69 medals — more countries began participating and putting more money into para sport, which has made the competition stiffer and a medal much harder to obtain.
"It's always been tough in a sense," Rivard said. "It's true there's been an evolution of the movement. Records keep getting broken. The podium is harder to access for sure. My personal challenge is to stay there."
Said Daniel: "It's been even more of a dramatic increase in triathlon. Rio was the first time that triathlon was in the Paralympics. Tokyo was more competitive than Rio and Paris is going to be more competitive than Tokyo."
The swim team, whose 19 medals in Manchester included nine gold, and track and field athletes are expected to lead Canada's charge in Paris.
Canadians amassed 14 medals, including gold won by wheelchair racer Brent Lakatos and middle-distance runner Nate Riech, at July's world para athletics championship held in Paris.
But how Canada defines success in sport is in transition because of a multitude of safe-sport problems that surfaced in recent months.
Federal parliamentary committees have heard from tearful athletes about the mental, physical and sexual abuse they've experienced, and the fears for their careers if they reported it to the sporting organization's leadership.
"Do we still want to pursue outstanding world-class results? Absolutely. Do we still want to bring home the hardware? Absolutely," said Canadian Paralympic Committee chief executive officer Karen O'Neill. "What we don't want to do is set up or perpetuate a system where we lose sight of the broader environment.
"When we say best-prepared teams, we've said it means supporting optimal performance through a healthy culture of excellence."
Athletes from Russia and Belarus remain barred from competing in sports sanctioned by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).
Russia, with Belarus as cheerleader, invaded Ukraine the week before Beijing's Winter Paralympics opened March 4, 2022, and just days after the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games.
Russian and Belarusian athletes were excluded from Beijing's Paralympic Games the day before the opening ceremony.
The IPC had intended to include them in Beijing as neutral athletes, but changed its position when other countries threatened to boycott.
IPC president Andrew Parsons cited an "untenable"' security situation in the athletes village.
While the International Olympic Committee is exploring ways for athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete in Paris as neutrals without flag, anthem or country colours, the IPC has yet to open that door.
"I don't have a sense of what the team feels, but I can tell you my hope for the team," said Canadian co-chef de mission Josh Vander Vies.
"The focus of my leadership is going to be to just do what I can to make sure that the performances of the athletes don't get dragged down into that narrative. We have sport performances that we have to take care of."
Added his co-chef Karolina Wisniewska: "Everyone might have their own thoughts, their own feelings, their own opinions, but generally speaking the focus is on performance, on Canada and what we can do."
The Paralympic Games status of Russia and Belarus will next be discussed at the IPC's general assembly Sept. 28-29, when O'Neill says Canada will vote to continue the ban.
"Our current intention is to go in and support the decision to continue to not have them participate," O'Neill said.
For those athletes who competed in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and then in mostly empty venues in Tokyo, the chance to perform in front of spectators again, including friends and family, is a welcome prospect.
"Having my first experience in Rio when I was 13, I was very young. I remember hardly any of it, being awestruck," said Moncton swimmer Danielle Dorris. "COVID happened during Tokyo, so we had no fans.
"The atmosphere was great because the athletes were able to bring that in, but it didn't feel what at true Paralympic experience could feel like.
"In my mind, it will be my first real experience."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 28, 2023.
Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press
